There are a number of signs your spider will display if a moult is impending. The first is that it willl stop eating. In the smallest of spiderlings, this may be for as little 3 days, or in adults as much as 3 months, or longer, but eating will most definitely stop.

New World spiders will begin to kick off hair in the days preceding a moult, and it is easy to tell from the bald patches on the opisthosoma how close the spider is.

A few days before moulting, the whole area will darken considerably, as the 'new spider' hairs are developed underneath. It is harder to tell with old worlders, who do not shed hairs, or have bald spots. Experience is a useful guide in these cases .

Your spider will invariably make some sort of moulting mat immediately prior to its moult. In terrestrials, this will be in a burrow, or somewhere where the spider feels safe at ground level, but in arboreals will usually take place in their existing web burrows, again making it harder to spot the difference between it, and a normal web.

The last and most definite sign that a moult is going ahead is when your spider flips itself over, stretches out its legs, and waits. The moult has begun, and now is the time to place the spider tank somewhere dark, and warm, and leave them to it, undisturbed.